macrumors newbie

macrumors regular

Probably not, I've heard it's difficult or impossible to install an older OSX onto a newer model number as it is not recognized by the software. In addition you may be missing drivers to properly run any new hardware. Don't think we'll know for sure until someone tries it, though.

macrumors newbie

macrumors 6502a

The best thing the OP can do is to call up mac tech support and find out. The info may also be hidden on the Apple webpage, but I don't know. As for someone making a guess, the other poster preficed his answer with "probably not", indicating he wasn't sure. Nothing wrong with making an educated guess if you let the OP know you are unsure. He was just trying to help.

My advice to the OP: Definitely call Apple and find out (do NOT ask an Apple store employee as my experience has been that they will not know the answer to this type of question). The new MBP has basically all of the same hardware (save a new processor) as the SR MBP (even the graphics card is the same, though with more memory), and the SR MBP was supported by Tiger because Leopard hadn't came out yet. My guess is that everything will work except multi-touch. Again, that's my guess. Best thing to do is call or speak with an Apple technician/genius.

macrumors regular

My information was based off of previous products that were unable to install old versions of OS X due to built-in version checking in the software. Do I know for sure that this will happen with a Penryn MBP? No, as mine is not here until Monday, nor would I want to install Tiger on it to test this for someone else. I indicated what the previous issues with his desire were, but warned that it was an educated guess based on previous results rather than testing of the new product.

macrumors newbie

But here's my point: When you're doing research before buying a new computer, it's frustrating to ask a question in a forum and see that the first two pages of posts are guesses, not answers. Then the next two pages are debates on why those guesses may be wrong in theory. People are tired of having to skim through pages and pages to find the answer to a yes or no question, especially when it could be answered by one person who's actually tried it.

"Does this work?"
"I tried it; yes it does."
or
"I tried it; No it doesn't"

Is that too much to ask?

I always appreciate it when people are trying to be helpful, But if you Don't know the answer to the question, then you're not being helfpul, you're just making someone looking for the answer spend more time doing so.

Point in case: More people have replied to my post then the Original Poster's.

He's not asking anyone to spend hours finding out. The target audience for MacBook Pro's are Creative Professionals. Creative professionals use software like Protools, and Maya, both of which have issues in Leopard. If a fraction of one percent of people who've already bought the new Penryn Books have tried to install Tiger, then we would have our answer.

Again, sorry for the rudeness, the simple fact is that it's annoying to see posts that are guesses instead of facts.

macrumors 68020

But here's my point: When you're doing research before buying a new computer, it's frustrating to ask a question in a forum and see that the first two pages of posts are guesses, not answers. Then the next two pages are debates on why those guesses may be wrong in theory. People are tired of having to skim through pages and pages to find the answer to a yes or no question, especially when it could be answered by one person who's actually tried it.

"Does this work?"
"I tried it; yes it does."
or
"I tried it; No it doesn't"

Is that too much to ask?

I always appreciate it when people are trying to be helpful, But if you Don't know the answer to the question, then you're not being helfpul, you're just making someone looking for the answer spend more time doing so.

Point in case: More people have replied to my post then the Original Poster's.

He's not asking anyone to spend hours finding out. The target audience for MacBook Pro's are Creative Professionals. Creative professionals use software like Protools, and Maya, both of which have issues in Leopard. If a fraction of one percent of people who've already bought the new Penryn Books have tried to install Tiger, then we would have our answer.

Again, sorry for the rudeness, the simple fact is that it's annoying to see posts that are guesses instead of facts.

Well it's too early to have any facts yet. Some facts I can tell you though... My SR MPB came with Tiger... since it is the SAME CHIPSET I know that it will work. The only thing that likely will NOT work would be the multi touch features of the trackpad. The track pads themselves appear to be the same, the multitouch will require an additional piece of hardware which no doubt Tiger will not support.

macrumors 603

Well it's too early to have any facts yet. Some facts I can tell you though... My SR MPB came with Tiger... since it is the SAME CHIPSET I know that it will work. The only thing that likely will NOT work would be the multi touch features of the trackpad. The track pads themselves appear to be the same, the multitouch will require an additional piece of hardware which no doubt Tiger will not support.

macrumors 68020

Well it's too early to have any facts yet. Some facts I can tell you though... My SR MPB came with Tiger... since it is the SAME CHIPSET I know that it will work. The only thing that likely will NOT work would be the multi touch features of the trackpad. The track pads themselves appear to be the same, the multitouch will require an additional piece of hardware which no doubt Tiger will not support.

There are other factors to consider. The new MBPs will have different graphics cards. Unless those cards use the same drivers as those on your SR MBP, your restore disks won't make it past the grey screen.

To the OP, it is doubtful you will be able to run Tiger. As others have said, it is effectively impossible to run an earlier OS than that the computer shipped with. Unless you receive custom disks from Apple (presuming such disks can indeed be ordered), you will almost certainly have to run Leopard.

macrumors newbie

I have tried installing Tiger (10.4.11 intel build) on my 15" 2.5 GHz Penryn MacBook Pro. It simply Kernel Panics on startup. My guess as to why it doesn't boot is that the OS looks for a known machine identifier on bootup and the Penryn MacBook Pro's identifier is not listed in Tiger's approved list, therefore it refuses to boot. I hope this helps anyone who is looking for the answer to the OP's question. I apologize that anyone looking for the answer has to sift through the above above guesses.

The best thing the OP can do is to call up mac tech support and find out. The info may also be hidden on the Apple webpage, but I don't know. As for someone making a guess, the other poster preficed his answer with "probably not", indicating he wasn't sure. Nothing wrong with making an educated guess if you let the OP know you are unsure. He was just trying to help.

My advice to the OP: Definitely call Apple and find out (do NOT ask an Apple store employee as my experience has been that they will not know the answer to this type of question). The new MBP has basically all of the same hardware (save a new processor) as the SR MBP (even the graphics card is the same, though with more memory), and the SR MBP was supported by Tiger because Leopard hadn't came out yet. My guess is that everything will work except multi-touch. Again, that's my guess. Best thing to do is call or speak with an Apple technician/genius.

For this question, it would have been useless to call Apple to support to find out if it were possible. They will only tell you what is supported. Big difference. " My guess is that everything will work except multi-touch." That's why I refer to guessing as useless. I could list ten reasons it should have worked, and ten reasons it shouldn't have. There is no way to know until someone tries it.

This forum should have been two posts; The OP's question, and one response from someone who tried it and knows the answer.

Again, not to be rude, but as someone who works with lots of Macs all day, it's very frustrating to look for the answer to a yes/no question and have to sort through pages and pages of responses by people who think they're being helpful, but are actually just making it harder to find information.

So again: If you don't know the answer to a question, please don't waste space on the forum with your posts.

macrumors newbie

Here is what i did. I have a Silver iMac that came with tiger install DVD.
Started the 2,4 MBP early 2008 in target mode. Asked Tiger started on the imac to install ont the MBP Drive.
Proceeded Flawlessly.
The only issue i get is that trackpad is not working the way it should. I mean i don't get the same feeling when using it, kinda slow and unaccurate, and two finger scroll doesn't work. I didn't succeed in fixing this with sys prefs.
Anyone has an idea?

macrumors newbie

I have done it using a 10.4.10 install DVD. On first boot, the backlight didn't work, so I had to do all the registration stuff in the dark trying to make out the text as best I could. Also the trackpad wasn't working (or at least, I couldn't see the cursor cos the screen was so dark!)

Go straight to Software Update and download and install all updates, including 10.4.11. After doing this and rebooting, the mouse woke up and the screen started working perfectly.

The only differences between the old 2.2/2.4 MBPs and the new ones is the multitouch trackpad - all other hardware is the same so drivers aren't an issue.

I haven't checked the iSight, can't remember how many of the trackpad's extra features work (scrolling etc..) and I don't remember if the backlight auto-adjusts like it's supposed to - but it works. I've been using Tiger with Pro Tools M-Powered and the rest of the OS is perfectly happy.

Just be sure to start with a RECENT (ie. 10.4.10 as I did) install DVD and update to 10.4.10 as soon as you're done.

---

To make the 10.4 DVD allow installation, you need to edit the OSInstall.dist file inside the OSInstall.mpkg file found in System\Installation. Towards the bottom is a list of allowed machines ('GoodHardware' if I remember rightly?). Depending on what disc you use it might be large or restricted to a single model only. For the new MBP you need to add MacBookPro4,1 to the list. Save and reboot using the DVD.
If the DVD doesn't play ball, you can still install Tiger onto your Tiger partition from inside Leopard. Go back to the DVD and manually run the OSInstall.mpkg from earlier. Follow the install making sure to install it on its own partition. Give it a while to copy the files and hey-presto, a fresh OSX install from within Leopard!

That's a very condensed tutorial - there are fuller, better ones out there if you need a bit more guidance. Have a search for installing OSX on different hardware and you'll find the important bits - the principle is the same as what you need to do here, even if there are no specific MBP4,1/Tiger tutorials written yet.

Enjoy!

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edit: A bit of background - yes I'm a new poster but have been lurking for a looong time and am not new to this sort of thing. I'm posting from my Triple-Boot Leopard/XP/Tiger(+DATA partition) MBP4,1. Even that sort of partitioning was generally thought impossible cos of MBR

macrumors newbie

For wich mac was the DVD u used to install tiger?
I tried with the iMac 7,1 install DVD (10.4.10) and i have issues with trackpad and bluetooth. I also tried installing from macbook 2,1 DVD (10.4.8 updated to 10.4.11) and it doesn't even start on my MBP.
Thanks.

macrumors newbie

I used an iMac 7,1 10.4.10 DVD, which I modified to allow installation on a MacBookPro4,1. However it still wouldn't boot (immediate crash) so I installed it from within Leopard as described above by running the OSInstall.mpkg from the System\Installation\Packages folder.

On first boot, I had no backlight or mouse, but as soon as I updated to 10.4.11 all of these worked (the backlight is fixed at full brightness, however).

macrumors 6502a

I used an iMac 7,1 10.4.10 DVD, which I modified to allow installation on a MacBookPro4,1. However it still wouldn't boot (immediate crash) so I installed it from within Leopard as described above by running the OSInstall.mpkg from the System\Installation\Packages folder.

On first boot, I had no backlight or mouse, but as soon as I updated to 10.4.11 all of these worked (the backlight is fixed at full brightness, however).

Way to go Melee! Very resourceful, I might add. I find it ironic that jurassicmac criticized people trying to keep the thread alive by providing educated guesses (which turned out to be correct), arguing that the OP would have to read through them to get to a conclusive answer.... and yet the longest answer, by jurassicmac, gives conclusively incorrect information. Which is less helpful to the OP, I wonder...

Again, way to go Melee. Color me impressed. And jurassicmac, "not to be rude" but you kinda dropped the ball on that one.

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